Norwich Bulletin

And well: Futurity not less than past
Seems shadowed on that world's ample page
(As though the voice of the prophet's soul
Of all the world dreaming on things to come!).

Tonight I turn the pages of a Play—
The Moor; and close upon the grisly end,
I find a dialogue with purport fraught,
As if 'twere played but yesterday—last scene
In the great drama of this Greatest War.

Take up the text where the betrayer stands
In midst of all, himself betrayed, at last:
All eyes are on him, and all wrath descends.

Ludovico—Where is that viper? Bring the villain forth.
Othello—I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable:
If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.
Will you, I pray you, demand that demi-devil
Why thus he hath ensnared my soul and body?

Iago—Demand me nothing; what you know, you know:
From this time forth I never will speak word.

The actors in the drama lately staged
They have new names, the action still the same.
A race deceived—it well may make demand
Of one, why thus he hath ensnared its soul
To monstrous deeds that drew the whole world's hate
(Long, long ere Germany that hate shall assuage).

Of her betrayer—? Lan—what? A gloomy castle
in the Netherlands. He sits beside a window—writes all day.
He does not speak. Be Heaven thanked for that!
He does not speak! (Our profit in such silence!
No boastings more of High Accomplice-ship
In plotted evil and in murderous drive—
To scourge with wrath the souls of all just men!
Impious pieties, that shut the lips
Of Faith (since Heaven awhile refrained its bolt).

Silent Iago—let him, silent, pass!
—Edith M. Thomas.